sunshine in your handbag
by F.Vikus
Summary: There is no graceful exit in falling outs. And Seth was never great at breaking and making up. Just ask Summer. Or Ryan. PostOC, semiAU. RyanSeth slash
1. october november

**sunshine in your handbag**

**Rating**: R  
**AN**: post-OC, and AU. Just a teensy bit, meaning Marissa doesn't die etc. Years after graduation, or whenever, take your pic.  
**Pairings**: Ryan/Seth  
**Warnings**: Seth angst. Lots of.

**Summary**: There is no graceful way to falling outs.

**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

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**October**

In all honesty, Seth shouldn't even be here. He's moved out of the house almost right after Ryan left for school, and from what he's heard from his mom, Ryan's actually done ok. Alright for the kid who didn't believe in Ivy League schools and Harbor.

He hasn't talked to Ryan since graduation, and by talked he means really talk. All out gossip about Legion and movies and Summer and mundane things. They've had the fifteeners, the "I'm on my way out so talk fast," calls. Those hurt Seth, but he swallows it in. He's grown, learned to stop wearing his emotions on his shirts. Instead, he talks faster, tries to weasel things out of Ryan before Ryan tells him he has to go.

Really, he just wants to hear Ryan's voice on the phone, but Ryan hasn't called him recently. Seth calls, but he gets Ryan's voicemail most of the time. Leaving messages gives Seth a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

So does the Celexa, but Seth's learned to swallow those dry.

Ryan doesn't call back most of the time.

Seth feels like a mistress, even though he has no right of thinking that way, and when he calls Kirsten, she tells him, "Ryan's getting married!" Dead on, and without warning. Seth inhales sharply, and then he realizes.

He's living some deadbeat life, with his unpaid bills and beat up car. He wanted to pull a Ryan, be self-sufficient and responsible, and not have to call Sandy up every time he ran out of money. He wanted to draw and be worshipped for being able to churn out pages and pages of marvel.

He's so left behind.

Kirsten's still talking, mile a minute on the phone, but Seth's no longer listening. He thinks of Summer, who's in Paris sweet-talking some French boy and shadowing some fashion designer. Or Zach, who actually made the comic book thing work. Actually, because Seth knows Zach is better than Summer at sweet-talking, and doesn't mind compromising.

_His soul, _Seth thinks darkly, and his mother's still talking on the phone about the engagement. Seth feels sick.

"Mom, I've got class. I'll call later," and he waits for Kirsten to stop and say goodbye before hanging up.

Ryan's getting married.

Seth wonders if that's the reason Ryan slowly stopped calling. Because if that's the case, then after Ryan gets married, he'll pretty much never see Ryan again.

He sinks down on the couch heavily, and fumbles with the lid of the pill bottle. "It's just hero-worship," Seth has himself repeating, over and over again, as he drops the pills into his palm. "Nothing more."

It's raining like a bitch outside, and inside, Seth trembles.

**November**

November and Summer finds Seth in the C-wing of the hospital. She still wears ridiculously high heels that taper off to a fine point, and that is how Seth hears her before actually seeing her. She is tan, but not to the state of leather, and her hair is straight and long.

"Cohen, when you get out, I am going to rip your balls out through your throat." She fills the doorway, hands on hips.

"Hello Summer," Seth croaks, before turning away from the door. His throat already hurts.

"What the hell were you thinking?" She drags a chair with one toned arm to his bedside, and shoves him, hard, on his arm.

_I wasn't._ But Seth's not gonna tell her that.

"Seth, look at me." Summer's voice has calmed down, but Seth recognizes that tone, vaguely. It was the tone that generally accompanied rage blackouts. Seth squeezes his eyes shut.

There is complete silence, and Seth slowly cracks an eye open. Only to find Summer on the other side of the bed.

"Seth Cohen, you talk to me right now." Years ago, Seth would've obliged at her demands, but now, Summer no longer sounded demanding. She sounds frightened underneath the demanding. He hears the silent _please_ that accompanies her demand.

Years ago, Seth was a different person.

"Tell me why I'm here right now." Summer's pushing her way onto his bed, on top of the covers. "They called me yesterday, and said you were in the hospital." She shifts so that she's face to face with him. Seth just closes his eyes.

Summer narrows hers. "Seth, what the hell did you do to yourself? And where are your parents?"

"They're not here." Seth sighs softly. Summer smells like some fruit concoction, and sand even though she probably was on the plane for eons.

"Why not."

"Again, with the demands," Seth says without much fight. "They don't know."

"What do you mean they don't know?" Summer is really close now. Seth can see how tired she actually is. Beautiful, like time had left her in her teenage years, but there are dark smudges underneath her eyes.

"I put you down, you know, just in case," Seth shrugs, "as my secondary."

Summer's purses her lips. Seth can see that she's slightly pleased, or touched, and confused. "I thought Ryan was." Definitely confused.

Seth inhales. "Ryan's getting married, did you know that?"

"Yeah, I mean, Coop called me the moment after he proposed because –" and then Summer turns her big brown eyes on him. "Oh my God. Is that why – "

Seth interrupts her sharply, "It's not."

She looks at him, something unreadable in her eyes, and turns away from him.

And maybe he expects her to hate him now, because Marissa's her best friend and all, and Seth had dated Summer and was in love with her.

"I," Seth begins, hesitantly. "I didn't mean, you know, anything. I'm prescribed and everything, and it's a normal dosage. But, those things, they don't really fucking work, because I was still sitting there feeling like shit." Seth breathes in shakily, and it sounds more like a sob. "So I took another, and another, and they don't," Seth chokes. "They don't work."

Summer lies next to him, wordless.

"And Ryan, he didn't call me like Marissa called you, even though we're supposed to best friends." Seth's skull pounds with every word. "And I know it's fucking minty, but Summer." His voice drops to a whisper. "I thought, maybe, I meant something, you know?" Seth wasn't sure what he really wanted to mean to Ryan.

Summer turns around, faces him again. She takes his face in her slender hands, thumbs moving across his cheekbones. When she smiles at him, it's bittersweet and tinged with regret and love. "Seth Cohen," she says, kissing his forehead. "You're a moron."

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I am so addicted to the OC. For all its cheap glamor and easy slashing.


	2. may

**AN: **APOLOGIES. I know it's been quite some time, but school has a nasty way of creeping up and slapping you upside. Hope you all enjoy.

Disclaimer applies. etc.

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**May**

Ryan calls.

Seth doesn't mean to pick up. He sits on the couch, legs draped over the sides. It's cloudy outside, grey. Seth likes the monochrome style of it all. He's sketching rapidly, hoping to capture the ideas before they flit away. It's a picture, strangely enough, of Marissa. Marissa before she turned _different_, not evil, never evil in anyone's eyes. Different from before, when she peered into the hole in the fence and faced Seth with boldness.

The room echoes with the ring of the phone, and Seth is amazed at the coldness, the brittle resonance in his ears. He lets the phone ring over and over again.

_It's Summer,_ he tells himself, an honest lie. Marissa is staring up at him, a neutral expression on her face.

The phone stops. And then it starts up again, not so much urgent as irritating.

Seth sighs and turns around on the couch, blindly reaching for the phone. "Summer, stop it," he snaps into the receiver.

"Um, hey," Ryan says.

Oh.

Seth swallows thickly, words stuck in his throat. "Ryan –" He clears his throat. "Ryan, hey." Seth swings his legs over the couch and sits up. He knows what's coming. "How's it going? How's Marissa? The company?"

A pause. God, his voice dwindles to a whine in his head.

"You must be really rubbing off on Gramps, man. He, like, won't stop talking about you to Mom, or maybe it's the other way around – "

"Seth, stop." A command, and Seth feels smaller by the second.

Ryan pauses. "We really need to talk." Then there's silence, as if Ryan's waiting for Seth to say, "Yes, let's talk." Seth's mouth, however, has a mind of its own, complete with a mini-bar. "Ooh, the talk," he says, words tumbling out like a dam breaking. "Breaking up with me already?" And it's the wrong thing to say; he knows it, and the moment they leave his mouth Seth's planning his escape speech.

He gets up and runs a hand through his hair. "Look, now's not a great time, because I've gotta go, somewhere, real soon, right? Like soon as in now-soon. So, I'm gonna go." And his thumb is hovering over the off button when Ryan says, "Please, don't."

The tone. It hits him right where the Zoloft and Prozac and Celexa don't. It's the tone Ryan used before Kirsten bailed him out of prison herself.

Seth feels exhausted and very old all of a sudden. Like he woke up and the sky was no longer above him, but little cracked pieces around his feet. _Time to grow up a little, _Seth thinks, resignedly, and speaks. "What do you wanna talk about?" His olive branch and dove, extended towards Ryan on the other side of the country.

"Us."

That was as fair as a sucker punch and Luke shoving his face in the sand, knee heavy on his spine.

Seth explodes inside, burning the branch and sacrificing the dove in a mess of blood. "Us? Us? There isn't an 'us'. There hasn't been an us for years. No Seth-Ryan time, nothing. There's a me, and then there's a you and a Marissa that you're gonna marry."

His hands are shaking. Marissa is face-up on the floor, looking at him and he feels the urge to throw her out the window.

"You know." Ryan's voice was flat, dull.

"Yes, I know. I found out from my mother, of all people. Not from you, my supposed best friend. Why'd you call anyways?" Seth presses his fingers into his eyes, feels the slight prickling from behind his eyes. He swallows desperately to prevent the knot in his throat from choking his words.

"I didn't mean –"

Nothing on the other line. Seth's anger is slowing now, receding back into the box.

"When were you gonna tell me?"

"I'm sorry. I was tell you. I promise. It just took longer –" Ryan's voice was all crackle, or maybe that was the phone and Seth knows. This scene was way too familiar for both of them. It's a breakup where there was nothing to break, a divorce, a separation, when there was no ring.

It's too much in such little time, and Seth cuts Ryan off, sharply. "Yes. Anything you need. Just," and he pauses. "Just not right now."

He hangs up and touches his chest to see if his heart was still beating. Is disappointed that it still is.

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Thanks for reviewing. seriously. because I live for such attention.


	3. january february

**AN: And I'm back. Happy New Year. Like, a month late. And MuchMusic is having an OC marathon. Oh, and responses are on the bottom! **

**January**

The ocean is cold, but the sky is blue. Seth lies on the sand, body sinking slowly in. The water laps at his heels and he knows he should move. The tide's coming in slow and quiet, like how Seth snuck into the pool house last year, last lifetime.

"Seth." Summer is standing beside him, legs bare and tanned. She should be mad at him, after what he's done. She shouldn't be here at all.

Seth smiles and feels like crying. He opens his eyes and reaches for her ankles. He likes her ankles. They are slender and he could see the dainty bones moving underneath when she walks. The sun is above her right shoulder, and it gives her a halo. Seth likes halos.

"Hi, Summer," he says, feigning nonchalance, and winces as his voice breaks at the end of her name. "I've done good, haven't I?"

"Oh, Seth," and she's down on the sand with him, arms around his neck. "It'll be alright. I promise."

It's what Ryan promised too, but Seth doesn't hold it against her. She's only trying, after all, and Seth loves her for it. He stays still on the sand, Summer's head on his shoulder, and breathes in the smell of her hair. Apples, jasmine, freshly cut grass.

Seth's put Summer on a pedestal, but he's put Ryan in his heart.

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****February**

He really didn't mean to come to this. Really. He doesn't mean to stand in front of his shattered bathroom mirror, clutching his sink like a raft he wishes he has. This is the earthquake that never happened, the hurricane that should've ripped through Newport. There's glass in the side of his right hand and he feels every shard when he clenches and unclenches his hand.

He wants Ryan here right now, with him. There's chanting in his head, slowly growing into a dull roar _you're not worth it you fucking loser you're not worth anything at all_ and Seth goes down. Captain Oats stares down at him from the window sill.

"Advice?" Seth murmurs, but the plastic horse remains silent. "Right, I'll survive." Seth turns away.

Because Seth Cohen has survived school with piss in his shoes, and the water polo team acting on their aggression. He's survived having his name defamed on bathroom walls, _Seth Cohen likes cock!_ even though now it wouldn't really be defamation if it were true.

And maybe he's come to this, lying in glass on the bathroom floor, because all those times Ryan made it okay. He beat the water polo dudes, and suddenly, there were girls and his shoes were clean, and it was pretty much okay to walk around the hallways after classes. His parents were different. Stopped dancing circles around him. Woke up a little.

The phone's been silent for weeks. Maybe a month. Seth isn't keeping track. What he is keeping track of are the days until the wedding. Seventy. Sixty. Fifty-nine. Kirsten is thrilled, Julie is thrilled, that's another three days.

It isn't even a proper knife. It's the edge of a broken mirror.

He wants Ryan here, now. Ryan, to pull him out of the mess he's become. But Seth knows Ryan's not coming. He's not gonna find him like they found Marissa in the middle of Mexico.

"He's not coming, Captain Oats." There are no tears, and when he pushes the glass straight down into his wrist, there is surprisingly little resistance. It hurts, the pain flaring up his wrists into the very pit of his stomach and his left leg kicks out in agony. He wants to vomit, to writhe on the floor in suffering. Wants to cry, scream, anything.

Seth watches the blood slowly well up in the gash before opening his other arm.

Why couldn't he find ink in that color, that dark, seducing red? His blood is hot and flowed, quick, quick, slow, onto the floor.

_Ryan,_ Seth thinks, quietly, _sorry. I can't. _

And then the red is the color of Marissa's lipstick, her mouth, and the red is the color of Ryan's beating heart.

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**Notes PART2: Many thanks to all who've reviewed. It's a little harder to do a depressed Seth, because TPTB never write him angsty - he's more of a foil for everybody. But hey, everybody writes Angst!Ryan, so why not a ZOMGdepressed!Seth. Oh, try reordering the chapters. Would be interesting...**


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